Using AI to draft replies to freight quote enquiries

Quote enquiries arrive in a rush and in every shape. A one-line text. A long email from a procurement officer. A voicemail turned into text by someone's phone. What you hear in all of them is the same few questions: where from, where to, how big, and when.

An AI tool can write the reply. It can't know your rate, your truck's space on Thursday or whether the tailgate lift is free. If it writes a price, it's inventing one. Tools can state false details in a confident voice, which Wikipedia calls hallucination¹. A made-up price in a quote reply is a costly example.

Do the thinking first, then ask for wording

Before you open the tool, decide four things on your own:

• Can you do the job at all?
• What's the price, and what does it include?
• Which day or window can you offer?
• What do you still need to know from the customer?

Write those down in rough shorthand. Then give the tool the enquiry and your notes, and ask it to turn them into a short, polite reply. Tell it plainly not to add any price, date or promise that isn't in your notes.

A prompt along these lines works as a starting point:

Draft a short, friendly reply to this enquiry. Use only the facts in my notes below. Don't add prices, dates, times or promises of your own. If something is missing, ask the customer for it. Plain English, no hype.

What the draft tends to look like

You'll often see a warm opening, a restated request, then the answer. Read the restated request closely. This is where small slips creep in, such as a swapped suburb or a pallet count that changed. Compare it to the original enquiry word for word.

Then look for filler promises. Phrases like "we'll get it to you as soon as possible" or "no problem at all" feel friendly but can read as a commitment. Cut anything you wouldn't say to the customer's face.

Say what the price covers

A quote is a place where vague wording costs money later. Spell out in your own notes what's in and what's out: waiting time, a second delivery attempt, a lift gate, a job that needs two people.

Say whether a price includes tax. The ATO's tax invoice page uses the words "Total price includes GST" as one way to state it on an invoice². A quote isn't an invoice, but the habit of stating it clearly carries over. That's Australian GST wording. Other countries have their own sales taxes, so check with your local tax body.

Ask for the missing details in the same reply

Enquiries usually leave something out. Ask the tool to add a short list of questions for the customer, drawn only from what's missing in the enquiry. Typical gaps are the pickup contact, access limits at either end, and whether goods are on pallets.

Electronic business messages often carry shipping details, product specifications and price quotes together³. When a reply goes into that kind of trail, it may be read again months later. So it's worth making sure it says only what you meant.

Before you press send

• Is every number in the reply one you chose?
• Does the reply match the original enquiry on addresses and quantities?
• Does it say how long the offer holds? If not, add that yourself.
• Is there any wording that sounds like a promise you haven't checked?

If the first two aren't a clear yes, don't send it. Keep a copy of the enquiry and your reply together, so the job sheet you build later matches what you promised. Turning messy load emails into a job sheet picks up from there.

Customer names and addresses are personal information. Before pasting a real enquiry into a chat tool, read the notes on private data first.